Most airports derive revenue from a variety of sources, and it is becoming more common for airports to finance operations from a combination of usage fees and to finance capital programs through grants, such as the Federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP) and Passenger Facility Charges (PFCs). (See, e.g., www.faa.gov). All of these revenue sources are based on the activity at the airport. AIP grant amounts are based on the passenger throughput and landed cargo weight. Approved PFC collection amounts are based on passenger throughput. In order to receive such government revenues or subsidies, however, an airport must be able to accurately track the number of passengers and amount of cargo passing through the airport. Manually tallying such data, or relying upon reported data from airlines can be cumbersome and inaccurate.
Traditional usage fees were generally limited to landing fees based on an aircraft maximum certified gross take-off weight. Airports would like to be able to more accurately bill for actual airport usage, which includes landing fees, use of gates, facilities and parking of aircraft, rather than just using flat fees based on gross aircraft weight. Traditionally, due to lack of technical solutions, airports used an honor system, whereby the airport relied on users to self-report their activity at the airport, such as landings, parking, cargo landed, and the like. However, when such data is carefully audited, many airports have found inadequacies in the honor system. Therefore, it remains a requirement in the art to provide a revenue management system that can track airport usage, passenger flow and landed cargo weight would maximize operational revenues as well as capital financing from AIP/PFC and other sources.
Airports operate using one of two accounting methods; residual costing or compensatory approaches. The main difference is risk allocation. The residual approach places the risk with the airlines, as their usage fees may need to increase to cover costs of airport operations. The compensatory approach may result in insufficient airport operational revenues, which would be an operating loss for the airport. In either case, airports have found that an independent accurate source of revenue management would be beneficial. For cost accounting, it benefits the users, (mainly signatory airlines) and the airport. Regardless of the accounting model used by the airport, an independent revenue management system would enhance operating revenues and capital program financing by more accurately tracking costs and usage.
Although all airports are somewhat different, it is important to point out that the sources of revenue at one of the “average” top 200 airports in the U.S. may be comparable to other, similar airports. For example, airport operational revenues usually may be derived from landing fees, automobile parking, and property management. Automobile parking usually accounts for 20 to 30% of revenue, landing and use fees usually account for 20 to 30%, and the remaining revenue is generally derived from property leases (e.g., for airlines and retail).
By comparison, capital program revenues are generally of the same order. For example, a typical landing fee for passenger aircraft may be in the region of $200-$400. The PFC entitlement, at $3 per paying passenger is therefore $300 for an aircraft carrying 100 or so passengers. Therefore the revenue entitlements being tracked are of similar magnitudes and should be managed appropriately.
With regard to tracking capital program entitlements, in a presentation titled “Optimizing Management of Airport Revenues,” one of the present inventors, Mr. A. E. Smith, presented a summary of airport revenues at the 2005 Airport Finance & Administration Conference Sponsored by AAAE and Southeast Chapter AAAE, Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2005. This presentation is incorporated herein by reference.
That presentation stated that 3300 airports in the U.S. national system received an average of $12 B per year for planned capital development. The largest source is bonds, followed by AIP, then PFCs, and estimates of airport capital developments range from $9 B-$15 B per year. AIP entitlements are based on cargo activity (landed cargo weight) and the number of enplaned passengers, which is based on a stratification of entitlements, with a minimum total of $1 M and a maximum of $26 M as follows: $7.80 for each of the first 50,000, $5.20 for each of the next 50,000, $2.60 for each of the next 400,000, $0.65 for each of the next 500,000, and $0.50 for each additional enplanement.
PFCs may be used in lieu of 50%-75% AIP entitlements. For more information on the PFC program refer to FAA Order 5500.1 (www.faa.gov), incorporated herein by reference. Other background documents include: AIP101, presented by FAA at the FAA Southwest Region Capital Planning Conference, Oct. 19, 2004, Fort Worth, Tex., and GAO-03-497T, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2003, AIRPORT FINANCE, Past Funding Levels May Not Be Sufficient to Cover Airports' Planned Capital Development, both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
There are also many background documents written by Airport Council International (ACI) and the American Association of Airport Executives:                www.aci-na.org/docs/pfcfinaldraft.doc;        www.aaae.org/_pdf/_regpdf/040318pfc.doc;        www.aci-na.org/docs/Hotlights02-16-04.pdf;        www.commerce.senate.gov/hearings/212pla.htm;        www.house.gov/transportation/aviation/04-01-04/barclay.html; and        www.aaae.org/government/200_Regulatory_Affairs/100_What's_New;all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Other related information may be found on the websites of the respective organizations, www.aci-na.org and www.aaae.org, both of which are also incorporated herein by reference.        
Air carriers must collect and refund PFCs where necessary. PFCs are collected for each one-way trip in U.S. at either $3 or $4.50. PFCs are collected only for revenue passengers. Carriers collect PFCs and manage the money as a trust fund. Airlines are compensated for PFCs remitted (either $0.08/$0.11 per PFC). As of January 2005, the FAA approved over 350 airports, including over 90% of the top 100 airports, to collect PFCs. Over half of the airports are collecting at the higher $4.50 level. By the end of 2004, FAA had approved over $47.5 B in PFCs.
The amount and type of funding varies depending on airport size. For example, as illustrated in the chart of FIG. 1, large- and medium-hub airports depend primarily on bonds, while the smaller airports rely principally on AIP grants. Passenger facility charges are a more important source of revenue for the large- and medium-hub airports because they have the majority of commercial-service passengers.
FIG. 2 is a chart compiled by the General Accounting Office (GAO), illustrating various types of airport projects financed through the PFC programs. The reporting requirements imposed by the Government for PFC programs are fairly onerous. Airports must compile quarterly reports to provide oversight of PFC revenue to the FAA and the airlines. Airlines collecting PFCs from over 50,000 enplanements must conduct annual independent audits. The quarterly reports are monitored to see how well revenues track to the approved program. Excessive revenue accumulation may result in a revision of charge expiration, or a decrease in the PFC fee. For shortfalls, an increase of project total is possible (up to 15%) by extending the program expiration date.
In tracking use fees, airports have been constrained to available technologies and manual procedures that have been on the market. Flight tracking systems and associated systems are now available (see www.rannoch.com) for tracking aircraft in the vicinity of an airport and on the ground. One such system is described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,812,890, entitled “VOICE RECOGNITION LANDING FEE BILLING SYSTEM”. The system of that Patent can track takeoffs and landings of aircraft using aircraft tracking data, transponder and other electronic data sources, as well as voice recognition of Air Traffic Control (ATC) communications. The system of that Patent has been installed at various airports with demonstrated success. After installation, billing for landing fees increased by as much as one third, clearly illustrating that previous manual reporting systems were inadequate.
It would be desirable to expand such a system (and it is one object of the present invention) to implement comprehensive billing systems to bill for airport usages, such as: Landing fees, Parking fee management, (By location/time period, and Overnights), Stratified user fees for signatory & non signatory users, FBO and GA fees, De-ice facilities, Ramp/apron/gate use, Maintenance facilities, Noise fee surcharges, Curfew violation fees, and the like. One method to achieve this is by the use of 2-D zones, as illustrated in FIG. 3, in combination with an airport's GIS systems and accurate aircraft tracking and identification. While there are several technologies available for tracking aircraft on the airport surface, none have been used in any real operational capacity to manage billing for usage, such as time on gate.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the Aerobahn system offered by Sensis Corporation of Dewitt New York. (See, e.g., www.sensis.com). KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) will begin an evaluation of Aerobahn Service at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to assess the value of Aerobahn in improving the management of traffic into and out of the apron area. KLM is the second SkyTeam Alliance member to use Aerobahn. Sensis recently announced that Northwest Airlines has contracted for 60 months of Aerobahn Service for its Minneapolis-St. Paul International and Detroit Wayne County Metropolitan hub airports. Aerobahn provides airlines and airports with comprehensive operational information which positions users to more efficiently manage and measure airside operations. At Schiphol, ATC coordinators in KLM's Operations Control Center will use the data to help manage flight status and to closely coordinate movements with air traffic control to maximize efficiency and capacity. While this system may be able to track aircraft, it does not appear to be able to use such aircraft tracking data to manage airport revenue.
Accurate measurement of time on gate by specific aircraft would allow the airport to bill for use. Additionally, it would allow the airport to manage limited assets more efficiently. However, current systems do not utilize this data to enhance airport revenue management. Most existing aircraft billing and revenue management systems are manually intensive and rely on data inputs from disparate sources. Many of the datasets are incomplete, inaccurate, and result in less than perfect solutions.
One example of such a Prior Art system is the system in use at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as illustrated in FIG. 5. The system is called CATER, for Collection and Analysis of Terminal Records System. The system is described in the Port Authority's Request for Proposal 0000007548, Electronic Collection and Analysis of Terminal Records System and Itinerant Aircraft Billing System, dated Jan. 13, 2005.
Data sources include schedule information, such as the Official Airline Guide (OAG), the FAA's flight strips and also Airline Service Quality Performance Reports (ASQP). On first review, the approach appears to be comprehensive, but it lacks several key data items, and many of the data elements are incomplete. For more information on Airline Service Quality Performance Reports (ASQP) refer to http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/www/labs/ICAT/ and Documentation for the Consolidated Operations and Delay Analysis System, September 1997, Office of Aviation Policy and Plans Federal Aviation Administration Washington, D.C. 20591, both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The FAA document states that ASQP data are collected by DOT to calculate on-time performance for its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report. Major air carriers are required by regulation to report this information. However, the reporting requirements apply only to air carriers with more than one percent of total domestic scheduled passenger revenues; the 10 carriers that must file include: Alaska Airlines, Northwest Airlines, America West Airlines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines Trans World Airlines, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and USAir.
However, ASQP does not contain any information on the operations of smaller air carriers, commuters, air taxis, or on general aviation, cargo, military and international flights. The percentage of total operations for which ASQP has data varies depending on the mix of traffic at each airport. At those airports where a significant proportion of operations are not reported, the ground movement and flight times may be biased. In addition, ASQP does not provide any information on the aircraft type used for a flight.
FIG. 6 describes the data fields available from ASQP: FIG. 7 is a screenshot from January 2005 of statistics for the ASQP data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics web site. As illustrated in FIG. 7, the tail number data is missing over 30% of the time. Other variables such as Airtime, TaxiOut, TaxiIn, WheelsOff, WheelsOn, and statistics related to the cause of delay show similar results. Therefore these existing sources of data for airport revenue management, while very useful, are incomplete, inaccurate, and offer a significant delay in data timeliness.
Another area of automation of financial management for airports is in Lease Management Systems. As stated above, a substantial portion of an airport's operating revenue may be derived from leases of property, for example to airlines and retail companies. In the past, most airports had limited facilities (“concessions”) for airport travelers. These concession stands were usually badly overpriced and offered limited poor quality goods and services. In recent years, many airports such as the recently renovated and renamed Washington Reagan National Airport have created virtual shopping malls within the airport itself.
Airports have realized that air travelers are willing to spend money in airports on quality services and products, and moreover are unwilling to tolerate the high-priced and poor quality “concession stands” of the past. As such, airports have discovered they are sitting on valuable retail space, which can be leased for a generous profit. However, many airports may not be as comfortable with this new role as retail space landlord, and may be ill equipped to manage such retail leasing operations.
For a retailer operator in an airport, income may depend directly upon the number of flights (and passengers) travelling in and out of a particular gate or section of the airport. Thus, a lease for space in a busy portion of the airport terminal may be worth much more than one in a lesser-used portion of the airport. A retailer may be willing to pay more for retail space where it can be demonstrated that more passengers will be passing by. Similarly, a retailer may be less willing to pay top dollar for retail space in a lesser-used portion of the terminal. Quantifying actual passenger traffic and basing leasing prices for retail space based upon such traffic could optimize revenues for all portions of the airport.
More traditionally, airports have managed leasing of space to airlines for gates, ticket counters, and other space within the airport. Managing leasing of such space traditionally has relied upon flat fees for use of a particular space over a period of time. Traditional leasing techniques may not have correlated costs with income and usage. Gates that are not in use by one airline may sit vacant and could be leased to another airline on an as-needed basis. Tracking such use of airport facilities can be cumbersome and costly. It would be desirable to provide a system for dynamically tracking airport usage for leasing purposes.
An airline at the airport may receive invoices for rent as well as aircraft activity. This can be summarized as static and dynamic billing; where the airline receives bills for rental of space (static) and landing fees (dynamic). There are several existing packages on the market for management of leases at airports—or the static part of the equation. These existing programs include:                AirIT's Propworks (www.airit.com);        Aeroware, (http://www.aeroware.com/property.htm);        Airport Corporation of America, (http://www.airportweb.com);        Kelar (http://www.kelar.com/gis);        the Bowman Group (www.thebowmangroup.com/bgclients2.html); and        Maximo, (www.mrosoftware.co.nz/pdf/SydAir.pdf),        All of which are incorporated herein by reference.        
An example of a typical standalone lease management system is described in Official Notice #6064, Invitation to Submit Proposal for Airport Property and Revenue Management Software System, published in February 2005 by General Mitchell International Airport, Milwaukee, Wis., and incorporated herein by reference. There are also solutions on the market aimed at capturing airport landing fees, such as Megadata's Passur (www.passur.com) and Lochard's SkyTrac (www.lochard.com), both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Other relevant Megadata references include Published U.S. patent applications 20040243302, System and method to display operational and revenue data for an airport facility; 20040104824, Simplified flight track display system; 20040054550, System and method for the distribution of information during irregular operations; 20030009267, Apparatus and method for providing live display of aircraft flight information; and 20050021221, System and method for the correlation of multiple data feeds, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
However, there are no comprehensive approaches that combine the static lease management with the dynamic aspects including landing fees, taxi usage, and overall facility usage including gates. Thus, it remains a requirement in the art to provide such a system.
When billing automation is introduced into a business, one of the main reasons is to improve the collection of revenue. A system that is more comprehensive in identifying usage may increase amounts collected. Costs may be reduced through automation and reduction of manually intensive activities. More accurate and automated client billing may reduce the cost to some clients, while increasing costs to other clients, but more importantly the system would provide detailed information on usage charges.
Most airports use unsophisticated methods to charge for airport usage. Peak time pricing is based on hourly blocks of time and client fees are assessed based on basic aircraft registration weight. Parking fees are usually charged to the nearest hour and ramp use fees are assessed based on the scheduled use of ramps at the airport. The reason for the approximations and basic rules is because existing (legacy) billing collection techniques are rudimentary and cannot support a more sophisticated set of rules.
With a more sophisticated system, the billing could be exact, and peak pricing could be based on actual landing time, parking time, ramp usage, type of ramp, and departure. Fees could be based on the specific aircraft weight for the individual aircraft, which would be equitable to users with different aircraft configurations. A system with this level of accuracy and fidelity would benefit the airport as well as the airport users. Users could have detailed information as feedback showing the billing accuracy and they could use this information to streamline their operations and planned use of the airport in peak and non-peak periods.
Increasingly sophisticated data feeds and the integration of multiple data streams allow an airport to get closer to the ideal billing methodology, one based on the economic cost of use. Every aircraft and passenger that arrives or departs an airport requires a certain amount of resources be available for that operation. Some aircraft require more resources than others based on their size, weight, and use (cargo vs. passengers). An ideal billing system would charge a fee based on the actual costs associated with accommodating that aircraft at that airport at that time.
For instance, an Airbus A380 will consume more of the airport's resources than a Canadair Regional Jet, but the difference in resources consumed by each of these two aircraft is only grossly approximated by the ratio of their maximum gross weights, which is how most billing systems are configured to charge landing fees. The Airbus carries over 500 people and may require that other gates be closed to accommodate the size of the large aircraft. These additional gates are then denied to other aircraft and have a cost associated with the lost opportunity, even if the Airbus was not using them. The lost opportunity cost represents an economic cost that should be recovered by the airport.
Thus, it remains a requirement in the art to provide an airport revenue management system which can track airport revenues and costs by determining the actual location, track, size, and type of aircraft travelling through the airport, as well as accurately tracking the number of passengers, amount of cargo, and the like, and to do so in an automated fashion, without relying unduly on manually entered data or self-reporting by airlines.